Source:
The September 11th Digital Archive

9-11 Now and Then
by Frida Berrigan

In the week of September 11th, it felt really important to remember and grieve for the 3,050 who died in the U.S.. The prayer vigils and memorials I went to helped me do that more fully than I have in the past, because they reminded me that we have to open our hearts wide enough to remember and grieve for the rest of the world. And we have to do more than grieve. We also have to think and act and change.

One way of doing that is thinking about other September 11ths. More than just 3,050 people died on September 11, 2001. 33,000 children died on that day. They died of starvation and preventable diseases, mostly the result of drinking dirty water. They died an awful, painful, meaningless and utterly preventable death. They died of starvation and disease. They died in poverty and misery. And they died again on September 12, and again on the 13th and the 14th and on and on and on. Every single day on this little planet of ours 33,000 children die-12 million a year (it is as though the population of Pennsylvania is being removed from the planet every year). Where are the memorials and the tributes to these children? Where is the outrage and the sorrow at their plight?

I begin here because living in New York City one gets the impression (in fact, it is almost impossible to escape from the prevailing notion) that Americans are the only ones who have ever suffered. 9-11 gave us a monopoly on grief and provides a justification- a blank check- for U.S. military aggression. At the same time, 9-11 also wipes our slate clean of past crimes and misdeeds. And it is our task to debunk and challenge that notion.

The World Trade Center was the world's tallest building from 1972 to 1973

It is a great irony that Americans are so into memorials and commemorations but are so ignorant of history. We remember 9-11, but only the 9-11 of last year. Could looking back at other 9-11s help us turn from grieving to understand and action and change?

In Chile, for example, 9-11 was an important date before 2001. It was the day democracy died, and the U.S. helped kill it. On September 11, 1973 the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende, a socialist who had nationalized private industry (including U.S. owned copper mines), was overthrown in a military coup underwritten by the USA. Richard Nixon gave the CIA $10 million to help make it happen. With U.S. support, General Pinochet took power and ushered in an era of repression, disappearances, killings, fear and silence. The wounds of that coup-the killing and disappearances of more than 3,000 people-have not healed, in large part because there has been no justice.

As our government prepares for war on Iraq, we can remember another 9-11. On September 11, 1990 the first Bush administration made the case before Congress that the United States should invade Iraq. The first person to testify was Dick Cheney, then the Secretary of Defense. Colin Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, followed him. (Maybe it is excusable that Americans are so ignorant of history, given that nothing changes except the titles of the powerful).

Kathy Kelly is the founder of Voices in the Wilderness, an organization that has made countless humanitarian trips to Iraq throughout the 1990s. She told of an encounter with an Iraqi woman whose child had just died, like 4,500 children under five do in Iraq every month from hunger and disease caused in part by the sanctions (1996 UNICEF stats). The woman said to my friend, "we mourn for those who died in the terrorist attacks, but please tell the American people that history did not begin on September 11th."

The Iraqi woman is right. History did not begin on September 11th. For the Iraqi people, history did not even begin on January 17, 1991 when the Gulf War began. And as our government plans for war in Iraq and Dick Cheney calls Saddam Hussein "the sworn enemy of our people," it is important to remember a bit of the history of U.S.-Iraqi relations.

When we ignore history, we are able to recall that Dick Cheney administered Saddam Hussein a sound butt whopping in 1991 as Secretary of Defense, but then we forget that over the next five years his company Halliburton did $23.8 million in business with Saddam Hussein rebuilding the oil fields and infrastructure that had been bombed during the war.

When we ignore history, we remember that Saddam Hussein has stockpiled and used chemical and biological weapons, but we forget that the U.S. sold him those weapons when he was our client during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. We forget that the U.S. (specifically then Middle East Envoy Donald Rumsfeld) turned a blind eye to Saddam Hussein's gassing of Iranians-sending a message that as long as he espoused an anti-Communist rhetoric he could be the most ruthless dictator in the neighborhood.

We can recall another important September date, September 28, 2000. On this date conservative Israeli leader (now Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon visited a disputed holy site in Jerusalem, known as the Temple Mount by Jews and al-Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) by Muslims. This provocative action set off the "Second Intifada," a wave of violence that has taken thousands of lives.

No meaningful discussion about September 11, 2001 is possible without dealing with the United States' stance in Israel/Palestinian war because it is the root of so much of the acrimony and hate directed at America. The Israel/Palestinian war pits F-16 fighter planes built by Lockheed Martin against teenage suicide bombers, D-9 Caterpillar bulldozers against children throwing stones, a nation backed by the world's sole superpower against a stateless people.

It is a fundamentally unjust war, and the whole world seems to know that. While the U.S. positions itself either as an honest broker of peace or a neutral observer in the conflict, the world sees the truth. The $3 billion the U.S. provides Israel each year military and economic support speaks for itself. And as the U.S. builds a case against Iraq as a rogue power that flaunts international law and gives the UN the raspberry, Israel's flagrant violation of 70 Security Council resolutions and 150 General Assembly resolutions is in stark relief.

The September 11, 2001 attacks. From left to right: The World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Flight 93 crash.

Source: Center for Cooperative Research

Our fate as a nation is tied to how we seek to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As a young Palestinian woman said "as long as the Palestinians don't feel safe, Americans won't feel safe."

What happened on 9-11-01?

3,050 Americans and the citizens of 80 other countries were killed in New York City, Washington, and Pennsylvania. A nation mourned and a world responded.

But then what happened?

Our outpouring of compassion and patriotism was watered down into a shallow and callous call for Americans to go shopping and get back to normal.

Our loss and grief were manipulated into a selfish hatred that justified gruesome warmaking against an impoverished and decimated population.

Our quest for justice, for retribution against those who perpetrated a great crime, was derailed and manipulated into a plan for a global war against terrorism. Was twisted into a vehicle for the U.S. to gain a new foothold in strategic locations like the Philippines and the Caucuses (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan) and establish a new level of military supremacy and control throughout the world.

Our fear and instability were channeled into a dependence on the government for security and protection no matter what the cost to our civil liberties.

Our search for answers, for meaning, for reasons was labeled un-American, treasonous, down right rude.

Our democracy- so touted throughout the world- was crushed underfoot and hundreds (maybe thousands) were carted off to silent jails, becoming America's own desaparcido.

So, in this time of memorials and tributes, celebrations and justifications, we can be mindful of the 3,050 who died in the U.S. on 9-11, the 33,000 children who died that same day throughout the world; the thousands killed by U.S. bombs in the war on terrorism; those killed by suicide explosions and Apache helicopter attacks in the "Holy Land;" those incarcerated and harassed and silenced here in the U.S.

I find this useful not for the purpose of discounting the mourning and loss felt by so many Americans but to challenge America's "monopoly on grief" and challenge the notion that everything our government does in the name of that grief is justified and right.

In conclusion, let us remember one more September 11th. On that date in 1906 a young Indian lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi was living in South Africa. Indians in white-ruled South Africa experienced repression and discrimination. They were second class citizens (not third and fourth class like blacks and tribal people). After the ruling British declared Indian marriages invalid and long before he was known universally as "Mahatma," Gandhi spoke at a mass meeting in the Empire Theater, Johannesburg, launching a campaign of nonviolent resistance to protest this discrimination against Indians. Gandhi's use of methods of nonviolent resistance improved the positions of blacks and minorities in South Africa. When he returned to India, he used those same tactics to push for Indian independence.

Remembering September 11, 1906 is a way of remembering that injustice cannot endure confrontation with justice and truth. But it does not happen overnight. Indian independence did not come until 1947. Apartheid's stranglehold on South Africa was not broken until 1994 when Nelson Mandela became president. It takes work; sacrifice organizing, tenacity, belief, and community.

Source: Common Dreams | News & Views

Economic Aftermath

The attacks had a significant economic impact on the United States and world markets. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange and NASDAQ did not open on September 11 and remained closed until September 17.

NYSE facilities and remote data processing sites were not damaged by the attack, but member firms, customers and markets were unable to communicate due to major damage to the telephone exchange facility near the World Trade Center.

View of the WTC and the Statue of Liberty.

When the stock markets reopened on September 17, 2001, after the longest closure since the Great Depression in 1929, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (“DJIA”) stock market index fell 684 points, or 7.1%, to 8920, its biggest-ever one-day point decline. By the end of the week, the DJIA had fallen 1369.7 points (14.3%), its largest one-week point drop in history. U.S. stocks lost $1.2 trillion in value for the week. As of 2005 Wall and Broad Streets near the New York Stock Exchange remain barricaded and guarded to prevent a physical attack upon the building.

The economy of Lower Manhattan, which by itself is the third-largest business district in the United States (after Midtown Manhattan and the Chicago Loop) was devastated in the immediate aftermath. Thirty percent (28.7 million sq. ft) of Lower Manhattan office space was either damaged or destroyed.

The 41-story Deutsche Bank Building, neighboring the World Trade Center, was subsequently closed because extensive damage made it unfit for habitation and beyond repair and it was scheduled for demolition. Power, telephone and gas were cut off in much of Lower Manhattan. Citizens were not permitted to enter the SoHo and lower Manhattan area without extensive inspection. Much of what was destroyed was valuable Class-A space.

The pre-2001 trend of moving jobs out of Lower Manhattan to Midtown and New Jersey was accelerated. Many questioned whether this loss of jobs and its associated tax base would ever be restored.

The rebuilding has been inhibited by a lack of agreement on priorities. For example, Mayor Bloomberg had made New York's bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics the core of his capital development plan from 2002 until mid-2005, and Governor Pataki largely delegated his role to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation which has been widely criticized for doing little with the enormous funding directed to the rebuilding efforts.

On the sites of the totally destroyed buildings, one, 7 World Trade Center, has a new office tower. Only Ameriprise Financial, Inc., a spin off of American Express Financial Advisors has been named as a potential tenant for it.

There is no consensus regarding the demand for office space looking forward to 2010, so the market for 7 WTC and other new construction in the financial district is soft.

North American air space was closed for several days after the attacks and air travel decreased significantly upon its reopening. The attacks led to nearly a 20% cutback in air travel capacity, and severely exacerbated financial problems in the struggling U.S. airline industry.

Many towers in the United States metropolitan areas were evacuated hours after the attacks, including Chicago and Los Angeles, where traffic was at its lowest volume ever for that city, and the major downtown business district was virtually deserted.

Potential Health Effects

Thousands of tons of toxic debris resulting from the collapse of the Twin Towers included asbestos, lead, and mercury, as well as unprecedented levels of dioxin and PAHs from the fires which burned for three months. This has led to debilitating illnesses among rescue and recovery workers, and the death of NYPD officer James Zadroga.

September 12 from space: Manhattan spreads a large smoke plume

Health effects also extended to some residents, students, and office workers of Lower Manhattan and nearby Chinatown.

There is scientific speculation that exposure to various toxic products and the pollutants in the air surrounding the Towers after the WTC collapse may have negative effects on fetal development. Due to this potential harm, a notable children's environmental health center is currently analyzing the children whose mothers were pregnant during the WTC collapse, and were living or working near the World Trade Center towers.

The staff of this study assess the children using psychological testing every year and interview the mothers every six months. The purpose of the study is to determine whether there is significant difference in development and health progression of children whose mothers were exposed versus those who were not exposed after the WTC collapse.

Nationwide Commemoration

This is the fence in Shanksville where family members and mourners hang up their own piece of grateful remembrance for the
passengers and crew of Flight 93.

Source:
The September 11th Digital Archive

Construction of the memorial is scheduled for completion in Fall 2006. Within the Pentagon itself, the America's Heroes Memorial was added in September, 2002 when the building repairs were completed. However, public access to this memorial is restricted to group tours.

The proposed design for Flight 93 National Memorial is called, "Crescent of Embrace," which has created some controversy due to its large red crescent that also points toward Mecca. Recently, due to the amount of public pressure, it has been announced that the memorial will be redesigned so as to avoid any confusion with the sign of Islam.

Construction of the World Trade Center Memorial began in March 2006. The winning design of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was Reflecting Absence created by Michael Arad. It is expected to open in 2009.

Engine 4 Ladder 15 on East River Drive, New York, NY


Source:
The September 11th Digital Archive

Many permanent memorials are being constructed around the world and a list is being updated as new ones are completed. 911 Memorials is a site that features the newest as they are added and provides a directory of each by community, state, and country that has built a memorial among the list in the column on the right of the site page.

In addition to physical monuments, a number of September 11th family members and friends have set up memorial funds, scholarships, and charities in honor of lost loved ones.

As the world learned of the attacks on September 11th, 2001, many united, and joined together,
recognizing that terror is our common enemy.

Source:
September 11th Patriot Day

Source: Wikipedia.org

Many permanent memorials are being constructed around the world and a list is being updated as new ones are completed. 911 Memorials is a site that features the newest as they are added and provides a directory of each by community, state, and country that has built a memorial among the list in the column on the right of the site page.

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